Dansm's Acoustic Guitar Basics
Welcome to Dansm's Acoustic Guitar Basics! This page is
designed to give you a background on a lot of basic stuff for acoustic guitar.
There will be lots of articles appearing here in the coming weeks.
If you are a beginner, make sure you also check out
Dansm's Advice for Beginning Guitarists.
If you find the information on these pages useful, please consider
e-mailing me.
Types of Acoustic Guitars
an outline of the types of
acoustic guitars available: folk and classical
Parts of an Acoustic Guitar
an image showing important parts of the guitar, names of strings,
and names of frets
Styles of Picking
a description of the two main styles
of picking commonly used: flatpicking and fingerpicking
Tuning Your 6-String
Tuning Your 12-String
the best way to get in tune quickly
Using a Capo
the song says "capo 3rd", so what do I do?
Alternate Tunings
some of the basic alternate tunings used by
acoustic guitarists
Humidity and Your Guitar
control the humidity around your guitar using
this homemade guitar-case humidifer!
Amplification of Acoustic Guitars
a brief discussion of the main methods
of amplifying acoustic guitars
Beginner's Guide to Chords
lessons to get you started
with basic chords
Strumming Patterns
suggested strumming patterns for beginners
Warming Up
warm-up exercises to prevent injury and
improve your playing
Guide to Hand Care
a collection of information on
nail care, calluses, hand strength, and injury prevention
Guitar Techniques
basic techniques like slides, hammer-on, pull-off;
explained for beginners
Making an Acoustic Guitar
photos from the Martin Factory Tour CD-ROM
outlining the guitar-manufacturing process
Guitar String Ratings
my ratings of every brand of string ever played on
my Martin
Guitar Chord Listing
here is a listing of all common guitar chords
Guitar Freeware
my collection of the best freeware for guitar: tuner,
metronome, tablature, and chord software, plus more
Advice for Beginning Guitarists
a page designed to get you started with guitar,
using lessons from across the net
Fingerpicking Lessons
if you've ever wanted to fingerpick,
these lessons will get you started
Guitar Scale Lessons
scales are very important for mastering guitar,
and these lessons will help you understand and learn them
Guitar Chord Theory
this page contains music theory
lessons regarding guitar chords
Musical Notation
descriptions of tab, chord, and standard musical notation;
designed so guitarists will understand
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since 4-14-97
© 1998 Daniel E. Smith. Last updated 5-16-99